Jennifer Seymour, who is a recovering from a heroine addiction, spends time with her recovery coach Hubert Yarborough Friday in downtown Greenville. Yarborough is the coordinator of a new recovery coach program for Faces and Voices of Recovery.(Photo11: BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff)Buy Photo

Jennifer Seymour met her recovery coach, Hubert Yarborough, when she woke up in the hospital after a near-fatal overdose. The two often meet to talk as part of Seymour's recovery process.(Photo11: BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff)

She didn’t respond.

“I felt like ... it was just reminding me that I wasn’t living right. I wasn’t doing right,” she said. “And he was always asking me about going to meetings and I wasn’t ready for all that.”

Getting clean

Yarborough is coordinator of a new recovery coach program for Faces And Voices of Recovery, or FAVOR, Greenville.

And persistence is the key to its success, said executive director Rich Jones.

After an overdose, patients typically leave the hospital, often to return again, with few getting into recovery, he said.

Rich Jones(Photo11: Brian Erkens)

What’s worse, 15 percent of them will die within a year from another overdose.

So FAVOR assembled a team of five state-certified coaches who’ve been through recovery themselves and are on call 24/7 to meet survivors in the ER with a goal of helping them get clean and prevent another possibly fatal overdose.

“As soon as somebody shows up, the hospital staff contacts us and our staff meets with the person,” Jones said. “But most folks don’t initially agree. So we keep trying and encouraging, even in the face of what appears to be resistance early on.”

Some 96 percent agreed to recovery support; 85 percent were linked to a 12-step program, inpatient rehabilitation or other form of treatment; 72 percent continue with FAVOR; and only 8.5 percent returned to a hospital for any reason.

As a nonprofit that promotes long-term recovery, FAVOR survives on donations from foundations, corporations and individuals, Jones said. It was able to launch this program with a $200,000 grant from the state Department of Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse Services.

And Sara Goldsby, director of the agency, said it's been so successful that it’s hoped it can be replicated elsewhere around the state.

“We knew that it was a really strategic program to fund because ... the folks who come into the ER with an overdose or opiate issue of any kind often don’t get directed to outpatient services or follow-up care,” she said.

“We had a strong hunch this would be successful because FAVOR Greenville is such a strong organization,” she added. “And they’ve demonstrated some fabulous results.”

Along with helping people into recovery, having peer support coaches doing follow-up with patients is cost-effective, Goldsby said.

Sara Goldsby(Photo11: DAODAS)

“Evidence-based practice is to keep (these patients) in outpatient ... services even after a risky episode,” she said. “And having that direct link to people who have had the same past, who can walk with them through this, is a tremendous cost savings.”

With a background as a mental health counselor, he trained to become a state-certified peer support specialist after joining FAVOR to help others.

Day or night, he arrives at the hospital within 30 minutes of getting a call about someone who’s overdosed.

Eight out of 10 have overdosed on heroin or a mix of heroin and fentanyl, he said. The rest have overdosed on oxycodone, Percocet or some other opiate.

He knows how sick they feel physically. And how frightened and isolated they are. He tries to make them feel as comfortable as possible.

“I let them know that I’m not a doctor, not a clinician, but a certified peer support specialist, which is a fancy way to say I’m also in recovery and ... I know it hurts inside and out,” he said.

Options for help

“I tell them, ‘I’m your advocate. I’m here to hold your hand and you can share with me whatever you want to and it’s in complete confidence,’ ” he added. “And it’s like the wall collapses between the two of us. I see the body language change and they let down their guard.”

He asks about their lives, their drug of choice, how they got to the ER. He gives them options for help and assures them that he’ll walk through the recovery process with them.

“Sometimes it’s dodgy,” he said. “But recovery is planted in their head.”

More often than not, given the circumstances, he doesn’t hear from them for weeks.

But he keeps trying to reach them. And eventually, he said, he’ll get a text asking for help.

“That’s why it’s so important that we stay engaged,” he said. “Keep texting and calling.”

Even after they’re in recovery, he’ll meet them for coffee or pick up some sandwiches and go to the park to talk.

A brighter future

After Yarborough heard from Seymour, he helped her get into an inpatient program in Columbia where she stopped using heroin.

He visited her there, and when she was released a month later, he found her a sober living house in Greenville with others in recovery who've become like family to her.

She got a Narcotics Anonymous sponsor and started going to meetings.

Her life began to turn around. And she credits Yarborough.

“I’d been tired of that life, but I just didn’t know how to do anything different,” she said. “Somebody else saw that and wanted to help save me.

"I know I couldn’t have done it without him.”

Now clean for six months, Seymour said she finally feels free of the chaos. She’s started a new job and is looking to a brighter future.

She wants to stay clean, build her life, get married and have children one day, and even pay if forward by helping others like herself.

“I was beginning to think my life was going to be rough and hard and miserable,” she said, dissolving into tears.

“But I’m happy. I’m real happy. Even on those days when I don’t feel real good, it’s so much better than where I was at.”